I had an interesting query from someone recently. In their choir, the tenor men sang the soprano part (an octave lower) and the soprano women sang the tenor part (an octave higher).
They asked me if there was any rule in choral music about which gender sang which part.
Here is the original question:
“I have been involved in four-part harmony mixed group singing my whole life. Until very recently the long established “rule of thumb” was that the soprano part was always sung by the women. But of late, in my circles, there seems to be a strong trend to have the men sing the soprano line an octave lower and the women take over the tenor line an octave higher.
My personal view is that this is not “correct”, even though I wouldn’t mind it for a small percentage of the whole singing. I don’t know if this is “right” or not, but would really like your perspective on it.
It seems to me that the soprano needs to be sung by women in order to fulfil some basic requirement of mixed group singing. But I can’t put into words exactly what this “requirement” is in order to discuss it with those involved.
Do you know of a scientific (or other) reason why the female voice is required to sing the soprano in mixed singing? (at least for the majority of songs). I will appreciate any light you can shed on this question. Thank you very much!!!”
As far as I know (and I’m not a trained muso!), there is no hard and fast rule as to how parts are distributed.
However, if an arranger has decided that certain parts need to be sung at certain pitches, then it’s a bit disrespectful to change that.
An arranger will decide how to prioritise the melody by allocating it to a particular voice part, then allocate the harmonies so they don’t compete with the melody too much. If the melody is in the soprano part, for example, allocating that to male voices might upset the balance when the women’s high voices sing a harmony against it.
Here’s an example. This is part of my arrangement of the Skye Boat song (I’ve cut out the alto part). I’ve arranged it with the tune in the soprano part and the men singing a lower harmony. This is what the original sounds like:
If I switch the voices around (now the melody is an octave lower and the harmony an octave higher) it sounds like this, which I think distracts from the tune:
Here’s another example. I arranged the Greek folk song Yerakina. I found a lovely recording with a male voice duetting with a female voice on the tune. The male voice sings a harmony a third above, but shifted an octave down. This is what it sounds like:
But if I put the harmony an octave up, I feel that it competes with the tune too much. However, that is down to personal preference. This is what it sounds like:
So, in short, there is no requirement that women sing the soprano part and men sing the tenor part other than that is what the arranger intended! It’s perfectly possible for an arranger to give the tune to the men and have the women sing the harmonies, but that’s the arranger’s choice. If I buy a song arrangement I would respect the arranger’s wishes.
Of course, you may have men who can sing the alto or soprano part at pitch (counter tenors) and women who can sing the tenor, and sometimes even bass, part at pitch. That won’t mess with the arrangement, but it can affect the overall feel or timbre of the song (see When men and women sing the same harmony part).
One other possibility is to mix men and women in every single part. This will double the octave in each part and result in a very rich overall sound. It was done a lot in the past in local British village choirs. In this way, you don’t mess with the arrangement too much or lose the balance between melody and harmonies.
Chris Rowbury
Get more posts like this delivered straight to your inbox!
Click to subscribe by email.
… found this helpful?
I provide this content free of charge, because I like to be helpful. If you have found it useful, you may like to ...
... to say thank you.